Category Archives: nwp

What I Write: The Written Text

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As part of this year’s National Day on Writing (which is Friday and Saturday — yeah, two days as one), I wrote a poem on the theme of what I write. I also began to toy around with various media, and will release a piece of my multimedia poem as the days go on. Today, it’s just the text of the poem. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you do some writing this week — yourself and with your students — on the concept of “what we write” in celebration of the National Day on Writing.

What I Write: An Archeologist of an Idea

What I don’t know
when I write are the mysteries of ideas –
the shadows filtering in from outside of myself
as some sort of jewel
half-hidden away in my consciousness demanding
freedom
from the perpetual over-thinking of just about everything.

And so, pen scratching paper,
fingers pounding keyboard,
skin touching screen,
the writer in me tinkers with these treasures that slowly unfold as
a singular phrase,
an inspiring song,
a passionate letter,
a sad story,
a shout-out-loud yelp into the wilderness of the world,
a poem — always, it seems, my mind comes back to me as a poem —
which circles back around on itself
until the grains of time get gently brushed away
and I, the writer, slowly emerge as an archeologist of an idea.

Peace (in the poem),
Kevin

 

How Fonts Affect Writing: A Digital Is Resource

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font resource digital is
This past week, I posted a new resource over at the National Writing Project’s Digital Is site around font typsetting, writing and the way we represent our writing in visual ways. I share out some places to make your own fonts, the world of “font fights,” the history of emoticons, and more.

Check out the resource: Fonts and Letters, Words and Meaning: What’s Your Type?

Peace (in the type),
Kevin

Connected Learning: Teacher Research and Inquiry

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If you have the time, check out Bud Hunt and Cindy O’Donnell-Allen, both from the National Writing Project, as they chat about teacher research and how learning should be a goal of everyone — students AND teachers. This is part of a series of interesting interviews and topics explored at DML Research Hub.

Peace (in the chat),
Kevin

 

Video Playlist: Recommended Books

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A recent writing prompt at our iAnthology writing space asked us to recommend books to read. I grabbed as many titles that had book trailers as I could find, and shared out this playlist. Maybe you will get inspired to read one of these, too.

Peace (in the book),
Kevin

 

Teachers Teaching Teachers: The Connected Educator

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Here is the video archive from the other night’s webcast for Teachers Teaching Teachers on the theme of The Connected Educator. I was one of the guests with host Paul Allison as we chatted about the month of activities, and what it means to be a connected teacher. The main guest was Darren Cambridge, who is helping to coordinate the activities under the umbrella of the US Department of Education (his research organization has been hired to help with the coordination).

Peace (in the connections),
Kevin

Celebrating the Connected Educator

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The Connected Me
August is “Connected Educator” month, which is another way of saying that folks are trying to make visible the power of networks, collaborations and connections that come about when teachers connect with other teachers. Of course, we do this mostly in our own buildings. But more and more, educators are reaching out to various online communities to find ways to share, explore, learn and borrow ideas from one another. I view the month as a way to showcase those kinds of connections, as partnership to the connections we have with our own colleagues in our own school buildings.

The diagram above is an attempt on my part to map out the various communities that I find myself part of, either as a contributor, creator or just active listener. The diagram is part of a webcomic I am also making, but it felt right to share it out on its own, too, although I still feel as if I am leaving something out …

If you want to learn more about the Connected Educator Month, including various activities, there is a ton of information at the Digital Is website – including a notice about Teachers Teaching Teachers tomorrow night (Wed), when I am joining a bunch of others to talk about this shift in expanding our networking circles with TTT host Paul Allison and others.

Where do you make your connections?

Peace (along the various paths),
Kevin

 

Making/Creating a Making/Creating Collection

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making creating collection

Thanks to the gentle pushing and suggestions from my National Writing Project friend, Christina Cantrill, I made my first curated collection over at the NWP Digital Is site. I’ve created a handful of resources, but never a collection that pulls resources together under one “big idea.” My new collection — Making and Creating — was an adaption of a post I had put up during an inquiry study group with the P2PU open university system, and my lens (suggested by Christina) was looking at how to connect the “make movement” with writing in digital spaces.

Come take a look and see what you think.

Peace (in the making of words),
Kevin

PS — A few years ago, I led a session around a NWP Makes! workshop. My topic was stopmotion animation and what we “made” during our session was this video called NWP Dance Party!

 

Another focus on our Video Game Design Project

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I was recently interviewed by Erin Wilkey Oh for the National Writing Project’s Digital Is site about our science-based game design unit. It’s always nice to reflect a bit on a project that seemed to have struck a chord with students. You can see Erin’s write-up here, and then follow her links to a transcript of our chat.

And of course, here is our Video Game Design Site.

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

 

 

Webcomic: Curation and Identity

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I am taking part in an online study group over at P2PU (with friend Paul Oh, of the National Writing Project) around the idea of “curation” of our digital lives. Here is an introduction that I created for our first activity, using Bitstrips to create a webcomic intro. The comic is embedded down below as a flash comic but you can also access it over at Flickr:

 

Peace (in the comic),
Kevin

 

Talking Tonight on Teachers Teaching Teachers

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I am looking forward to talking with National Writing Project friend Paul Allison and others on tonight’s webcast episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Paul asked if I would join him to chat about some of the projects and work and play that my students did over the course of the school year, so I am going to focus a bit on our research essay/multimedia project, and then shift into video game design in the classroom.  I also hope to discuss a summer reading project that I am doing in Edmodo with a new teacher colleague out in Texas, where our students are using (sort of) a shared Edmodo space for book talk. And then who knows where the conversation might end up.

The livestream of the discussion will be over at EdTechTalk: http://edtechtalk.com/ttt tonight (Wednesday) at 9PM ET / 6PM PT. If you can join  us in the chat room there, that would be cool. If not, I will post the archived video discussion that Paul creates over here when it is live and ready.

Peace (in the discussions),
Kevin